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Turns out that there’s an exercise bike in my house. I just paid that little attention to it that I never thought to use it before now. Needs some batteries so that the display and resistance will actually work but once they’re in then I’ll be fine! Something to do that’ll give me some feedback of how well (or poorly) I’m doing.
As for diet, it’s suffered over the last week or so. Being unwell really doesn’t make you want to come home (yeah, no sick pay from work means no time off) and eat a salad or anything low fat really. Comfort food is where it’s at. I’ve tried to keep the unhealthy eating to a minimum and I don’t think I’ve done badly. Ham wraps during the days have helped keep my calorie count down. Haven’t weighed myself for quite a while though. Don’t think I really want to…

So I’m a bit under the weather at the moment, hence the no post for a few days, and my healthiness is suffering. I’m feeling pretty physically wiped out, and as I still have to go to work; apart from a 15 minute walk every day, I’ve done no exercise since Sunday. The diet is still alright, although I’m allowing myself to have small small tiny treats every day now because having nothing was driving me crazy.

Going to attempt some squats and crunches today, ease myself back into exercising before I do a full workout. I’ll probably have to dial down the exercise over the next week or so anyway if I’m still feeling crappy, because I’m working the next nine days in a row so I’ll end up totally exhausted.

Decided that today can be my non-exercise day. Three days on, one day off is the plan. Need a break, the burning in my legs has subsided but I really don’t want it back just yet.
Don’t really have a lot to say, mainly worked last night so I didn’t really do anything interesting. Got a frappé from McDonald’s as a treat. Only 365 calories (or thereabouts). That’s a once a week sort of thing though.

My biggest downfall when it comes to food is either pizza or snacking. I’d probably go with snacking, because I can sit and consume a full packet of biscuits or a multipack of crisps without even thinking about it. This is why yesterday was such a problem for me.

I was on my way to get some food before work. I actually ended up with a pack of wraps and some meat to go in them, Tesco does not do healthy food on the go. Apart from their sandwiches, which are gross most of the time. Moving on, while I was on my way to the store I was suddenly hit my a major sugar craving. I just wanted something sweet and preferably chocolatey. So after wandering the aisles for a while I finally decided to just buy Alpen bars. 65kcal and 2g fat (per bar) in the chocolate fudge ones, winner. So when I took them to the car, I realised that Alpen bars are a lie. I opened the box to find 5 bars, standard. I opened the wrapper to find it only half full. Was not pleased. However, when I ate it, I suddenly didn’t care that they were tiny and awful value for money. They taste like caramel Rice Krispie squares. I was amazed. So yeah, suffice to say I’ve now found something to keep my sugar cravings away.

Ended up getting hugely distracted from actually going to do exercise. I got back on track eventually and did about twenty minutes of crunches, squats, lunges and twisty things. Mainly crunches though. Pushed myself to do as many leg-related exercises as I could and wow, do I regret it. Stiff isn’t the word.

Anyway, the distraction is a good distraction. Origin/EA’s humble bundle. Bunch of games, 100% of proceeds to go charity and/or humble tip (as far as I’m aware). Dead Space, Dead Space 3, Burnout Paradise Ultimate Box, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Mirror’s Edge & Medal of Honor for US$1. All downloads, obviously, no physical copies, but it’s a good deal. I’ll be honest and admit that I’m not interested in any of those games. Well, maybe Burnout or Mirror’s Edge. Doesn’t matter either way because all of the above are Windows-only compatible and my laptop is not Windows. HOWEVER, if you pay over the average of US$4.74 you also get Battlefield 3 (no, thanks) and Sims 3 + two expansion kits. And the Sims bundle is Apple compatible, YAY!

(Stay with me, this does have some relevance to the theme of the blog)

I love the Sims games. It’s the only reason I bought the bundle. Pay $5, get the base pack, the Late Night pack and some furniture kit thing. BARGAIN. Paid, opened up Origin and tried to use my code to download it. Won’t work just yet due to overloaded servers (oh, EA, when will you sort yourselves out?!) so I decided to have a look around the Origin store, my account, etc. Sat in the “My Games” section of it was…the Sims 3. And two expansion packs. Not the humble bundle ones but some I bought on disc about two years back and have since traded in. However, since I registered them to my EA account, they’d been stored as downloads. So I now have two copies of the Sims 3 base pack, two copies of Late Night, a proper expansion pack and some extra furniture. I paid £3.21 for some virtual furniture. So much for not making frivolous purchases.

I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of buying the furniture was it not included in the bundle or that my sims will probably still hate their house and set it on fire.

TL;DR: I wasted $5 buying games I didn’t realise I already had and my legs hurt, but at least I did my bit for charity.

I am aching. My stomach is fine but my legs/lower back are stiff and sore. Not going to let it stop me though. Going to do a small workout today. After I’ve written this!

Yesterday’s eating went well. Pitta bread is the future! Especially if you fill it with peppers, chicken (processed, booo. But I’m poor, okay?), spinach, peppery salad leaves, spring onions and low cal honey and mustard dressing. Was very nice. So I had two of those, an apple as a snack before work and a bag of crisps on the way home from work. Pretty low calorie, healthy day I’d say. Today I only got out of bed at 11, so I’ve swapped my usual no breakfast for a bowl of red berry Special K.

Whilst in the supermarket I realised as well that buying things like pittas and fillings is considerably cheaper than buying the pizza, rustlers, whatever, that I normally have. I always thought that eating healthily was much more expensive, turns out I was wrong. Also found a good recipe for milk free ice cream made with bananas as the base, think it’s mainly for vegans but it works on a healthy eating diet too. It’s good for me because normal ice cream hurts my teeth due to it being too cold; this stuff, instead of melting into a runny mess, just softens up so I can eat it slightly warmer than normal ice cream without having to drink it! Although you do have to freeze it to begin with and as my freezer is busted, I won’t be able to make it any time soon unless I go to a friend’s house to do it.

All in all, apart from the aches and pains from the workout, everything is going well. I know it’s only the second day and everyone makes it this far but it doesn’t mean I can’t be pleased with myself!